Year: 2010

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Belated greetings from one of most beat writers’ favorite stops on the road.

Belated because I didn’t arrive at the hotel here until about midnight, which gave me two choices — blog immediately or enjoy a little of the nightlife.

I opted not to blog because the extent of any news I have was this: Three players skated this morning — Douglas Murray, Devin Setoguchi and Kent Huskins — before the team flew to the first stop on this three game road trip.

Or I could also explain how a communications mishap ended up with me hurriedly driving to the jet center at 9:15 a. m. for a couple of quick interviews for a print edition story on Patrick Marleau that is probably available online by now.

Either all that, or I could have hit a few of the honky-tonks. I opted for the honky-tonks. Sorry.

Nothing more on the specific injury, but Todd McLellan did say he expects Murray to skate tomorrow before the team flies to Nashville. And that Murray will be on the plane.

And I’ll limit myself to just one moment from tonight’s game — in part because once a game goes to a shootout, my time in the locker room is limited by deadlines.

But, as the print edition story notes, both Logan Couture and Todd McLellan were convinced his opening shot in the shootout did make it into the net. Yet both realized there was nothing that could be done because Andrew Raycroft was on top of the puck, making it invisible to the video replay camera. Continue Reading →

No details — and not likely to find out too much even after the game, if recent past practice continues — but Douglas Murray won’t be in the lineup tonight against the Dallas Stars and is day-to-day with a lower body injury.

I checked the stat sheet from Saturday night’s 2-1 overtime victory over Chicago and Murray logged 19:49 ice time, slightly under his season average of 20:03 and he was on the ice as late as 17:26 of the third period.

For openers, Antti Niemi gets the start tonight against the Dallas Stars.

“We thought that he played a pretty darn good game the other day,” Todd McLellan said, referring to his team’s 2-1 OT victory over Chicago. “I think he’d like to have the one goal back that did go in, but other than that he was solid.”

As for Evgeni Nabokov’s situation, I’ve got nothing yet from the parties directly involved. But sources connected to the team said that his wife, Tabitha, and their two children may have visited him in Russia, but didn’t make the move with him, choosing instead to remain in their San Jose home. Considering Tabitha grew up in Kentucky and met Nabokov when he played in San Jose’s Lexington farm team, that’s not a big surprise.

Dan Boyle, for example, said his wife had been in contact with Tabitha over the past couple months, but that he learned only of Nabokov’s departure from Ska St. Petersburg when he heard about it this morning.

The news broke elsewhere this morning, but I’ll pass it along here as well:

Evgeni Nabokov has been released from his four-year, $24 million contract with SKA St. Petersburg of the KHL because of “family circumstances,” according to TSN.ca, which cited the Russian team’s web site as its source.

The TSN report also noted that “the former Sharks netminder was 8-8-5 in 22 games this season, with a save percentage of .888 and a 3.02 GAA. He played in the team’s most recent game on Friday, and was pulled after giving up a pair of goals against Nizhny Novgorod during a 5-2 loss.”

I’ve got calls out to see what else I can find out about the story and, of course, will pass along anything I find out.

For now, though, I figured I’d go back to my tape of Doug Wilson’s “Ice Insights” talk with season-ticket holders on Saturday night. I posted the gist of what he had to say about the changes in nets yesterday, but I figured the topic just got a little more newsworthy.

Wilson was asked to assess his team’s goaltending thus far and whether he did the right thing in letting Evgeni Nabokov go. Here’s the more complete version of what he had to say:

If there’s news from the Sharks today, it’ll have to come from Mark Emmons as I’ve got my first day off in a while.

But (and why is there always a ‘but’ on a day off) last night was GM Doug Wilson’s annual session with season-ticket holders at a pre-game Ice Insights. And a lot of the topics that came up in the Q&A session were the same ones that frequently get raised in the comment section here: goaltending, the defense, Jonathan Cheechoo and Owen Nolan just to name a few.

Without further ado, a sampling of what you missed if you weren’t there:

Wilson was asked to assess the goaltending and whether he did the right thing in letting Evgeni Nabokov go?

“It’s a work in progress. We’re very pleased with Niittymaki’s game, he’s come in and played very well. But we expected that.

“Antti Niemi, people have to understand, is still a young goalie in this league. Last year in Chicago, the first half of the season, he didn’t play much, then he went on and had a great run and obviously played very well in the playoffs.

“When a guy comes from another team that beats you, I don’t expect it to be a love affair quickly. ”

No surprise: Antti Niemi gets his second start against his former team tonight when the Sharks face the Chicago Blackhawks.

But unlike last time when Niemi had to face a phalanx (and that, I believe is the first time I’ve ever used that word) of cameras and microphones, things were a lot less insane around his cubicle in the locker room. I strolled over for a couple questions. When I was done sjsharks.com showed up for a few. When he was done, the Chicago Tribune stopped by. If there were others, I missed it.

“Obviously the biggest fuss is gone and it’s easier for me to play and I can concentrate on that, so it’s good,” Niemi said.

I asked Chicago captain Jonathan Toews if his team benefits at all from having face Niemi once already — a 6-3 San Jose victory — or did they already know everything they needed to know about him.

BUFFALO — The Sharks are already home and probably thinking about Saturday night’s game against the Chicago Blackhawks.

Me, I’m still here, waiting for the late afternoon flight that will get me back to San Jose through Atlanta (more on that later) and still wondering why a team that can do virtually no wrong this century in Philadelphia (5-1-1) can do virtually no right here in Western New York (1-6-0).

Understandably, before their 6-3 loss to the Sabres last night, Todd McLellan didn’t want to have to explain away San Jose’s overall 1-12-1 record in Buffalo since the Sharks entered the league. After all, this is only his third season behind the bench.

“I’ve been part of two of the losses in that streak. I don’t know what happened before,” he said, citing the Feb. 13, 2009 loss when the city was stunned by a fatal plane crash and the Sabres came back to tie the game in the final seconds, then win in a shootout, 6-5.

“Then last year I was disappointed in our team. I felt we had guys that were getting through the night – it was the night before the Olympic break. We had eight guys going and nobody wanted to get banged up or beat up and we kind of played like that so we didn’t give ourselves a chance to win.

“Tonight we’re at the back end of a trip as we were the other two years,” he said before last night’s game. “And I’m going to challenge our guys to come out and compete and leave everything they have on the ice and then get on the plane and worry about coming home — and not before.”

BUFFALO — No real surprise: Antti Niemi will be back in goal for the fourth time as this five-game trip comes to an end tonight. A victory would mean a eight of ten points against some pretty impressive opposition over the past eight nights.

Sometimes you don’t have to ask what a coach is thinking and I figured this is one of them. Not on the second half of back-to-backs with travel when Antero Niittymaki was in the first game that went to a shootout.

Other than that, not a whole lot to update with the Sharks.

San Jose, many of you know, hasn’t had a lot of success in Buffalo. The Sharks are 1-12-1 in Western New York, the lone victory coming in Joe Thornton’s first game with the team he now captains.

Speaking of captains, if you haven’t been following the Sabres’ doings lately, you may be surprised that Craig Rivet isn’t in the lineup. Don’t be. The Buffalo captain has been a healthy scratch the past six games and, yes, that can be awkward.

PHILADELPHIA – There may be no excuses in hockey, but when it comes to blogging and why there wasn’t a more timely post, I’ll shamelessly admit I’ve got a million of ‘em.

Sure, that insane 5-4 shootout victory over the Philadelphia Flyers last night cried out for some post-game material. And that was the plan. But when I got back to the hotel near the Philadelphia airport and had trouble printing out the boarding pass for my morning flight, I discovered that Internet connectivity was an issue throughout the building.

Now I’m at the airport, minutes from getting on the smallish regional jet that will get me to Buffalo for tonight’s game against the Sabres. And lo and behold, I’ve got connectivity.

So enough of the long-winded explanations for what otherwise would appear to be slacking off.

No PR department in the NHL does a more complete job of providing the media with transcripts of every significant interview in both locker rooms than Philadelphia’s. No one. So it would have taken very little effort for me to provide endless hours of reading pleasure by simply cutting and pasting.

Which I’ll do now. Enjoy the revisiting:

No, wait. I probably should mention first that the Sharks, no surprise, won’t be practicing today in Buffalo other than pre-game warm-ups. Not at the end of a trip like this, not after a game like that. I’ll get access to Todd McLellan a couple hours before the faceoff, but I’ll go out on a limb and guess now that Antti Niemi will be in the nets for tonight’s second half of back-to-backs.

OK, back to those transcripts. And, why not start with everybody’s favorite Flyer:

Flyers Defenseman Chris Pronger

Q: The swing of emotions right there, where you think you have it won in overtime and then have the overturned and lose in a shootout – talk a little bit about what that does to the entire bench going into the shootout?

“I don’t know. I don’t think that part of it really matters. If you can’t hold a 4-1 lead with 13 minutes to go, the rest is…[it] doesn’t matter.”